Sagan and the Dalai Lama, a Retrospective.

Thanks again go to Larry Klaes for bringing this to our attention.

Religion and science do not have to be at odds. Science, said Ann Druyan, widow of Cornell astronomer Carl Sagan, can communicate with, learn from and even benefit from religion and vice versa.

Druyan, a writer and media producer who collaborated with Sagan for 19 years until his death in 1996, reflected on dialogues in the early 1990s between Sagan and the Dalai Lama at a Sept. 28 lecture in Anabel Taylor Auditorium. For the first time, film excerpts of the meeting between the two were shown in a public venue.

Sagan, Cornell professor and author of "Cosmos," "Contact" and "Dragons of Eden," among other books, was perhaps best known for his extraordinary ability to communicate science to the public. "He wanted to share with everyone the wonder and awe that science inspired in him," Druyan said.

She stressed that there were political motivations behind Sagan's work as well: "Carl believed that you can't have a democratic society if you have a tiny scientific elite and a public who is uncomfortable with the methods and language of science," she said.

Click here to read the whole article from Cornell University's Chronicle Online.